GUNFIRE AT FERGUSON ANNIVERSARY MARCH
Police officers in Ferguson, Mo., shot and wounded a young man who reportedly fired his gun at them during an otherwise peaceful protest march to commemorate Sunday’s one-year anniversary of Michael Brown’s death at the hands of officer Darren Wilson. The suspect, who reportedly unleashed a “remarkable amount of gunfire,” is undergoing surgery and is in “critical, unstable condition,” CNN quoted St. Louis County Police Chief Jon Belmar as saying. Belmar lamented the shooting, saying continued violence only hinders the city’s attempts to progress after last year’s killing. “We cannot continue, we cannot talk about the good things that we have been talking about, if we are prevented from moving forward with this kind of violence,” he said. Read more in our Extra! feature.
VERBATIM
“Women are tremendous. … They are amazing executives. They are killers,” apparent GOP frontrunner Donald Trump said Sunday during one of his four news show appearances. It came in response to critics who accused him of sexism after a feud with Fox News journalist Megyn Kelly, who moderated last week’s Republican debate. Complaining that he had been treated unfairly during the debate, Trump had said Kelly had “blood coming out of her eyes, blood coming out of her wherever.”
TURKEY HIT BY WAVE OF ATTACKS
At least four police officers were killed in a mine attack in southeastern Turkey this morning, just moments after two people opened fire outside the U.S. consulate building in Istanbul in an attack that left no casualties. One of the two Istanbul attackers, a woman, was arrested. According to Hürriyet, the explosion that killed police officers was the work of militants from the Kurdish Workers’ Party (PKK), and it comes amid escalating tensions between Turkey and the Kurdish minority. Speaking to the BBC, PKK leader Cemil Bayik said the goal behind Turkey’s recent attacks against Kurdish fighters in Syria was “to limit the PKK’s fight against ISIS. Turkey is protecting ISIS.”
WORLDCRUNCH-TO-GO
The small Colombian town of Concepcion is the first place in the country where the vast majority of transactions involve electronic banking via mobile phones, meaning that it’s well ahead of even northern Europe, El Espectador writes. “The curiosity in this little town is the coexistence of 21st century payment methods with its 19th century roads,” journalist Sergio David Gonzalez writes. “It takes more than two hours to get here by bus from Medellín. The paved highway runs as far as the neighboring town of San Vicente, south of Concepción, and then devolves into a dirt track. Another route here is through Barbosa, though part of this road is dangerous in winter.” The cash-free culture all started as part of a pilot program intended to bring ordinary citizens and small businesses into the official economy and banking system.
Read the full article, The Small Colombian Town That Stopped Using Cash.
SUICIDE BOMBING AT KABUL AIRPORT
Afghanistan’s capital of Kabul was the target of yet another attack this morning, this time at its airport, after a wave of violence that has killed at least 50 people and left hundreds wounded in recent days. At least four people have been confirmed dead but many more casualties are feared.
MY GRAND-PÈRE’S WORLD
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PAKISTAN ROCKED BY CHILD ABUSE SCANDAL
Pakistani police have arrested seven of the 12 people accused of involvement with a gang believed to have sexually abused at least 280 children, Dawn reports. The victims, some of whom are now in their 20s, began coming forward to police last month, accusing perpetrators of having drugged them and extorted money from their families. The abuse, which targeted children as young as 6, was recorded and the videos sold. Read more from The New York Times.
ON THIS DAY
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NASA’s Magellan spacecraft reached Venus on this day in 1990, 15 months after it first launched. Check out today’s shot of history.
GREECE AND CREDITORS CLOSE TO DEAL
The Greek government and international lenders are on track to finalize details for a third bailout, worth 86 billion euros, by an Aug. 20 deadline, the Financial Times reports. Significant concessions from Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras have convinced most creditors, though Germany “wants to hold out longer to squeeze more reforms from Athens,” the newspaper reports. Greece’s next repayment, to the European Central Bank, is due Aug. 20.
DEADLY TYPHOON SOUDELOR WEAKENS
Photo: Han Chuanhao/Xinhua/ZUMA
Typhoon Soudelor, billed last week as the biggest of the year with winds of up to 230 kilometers an hour (140 mph), has weakened and been downgraded to a tropical storm after causing extensive damage in Taiwan and China, AFP reports. Soudelor killed at least six people in Taiwan and 17 in China in floods and mudslides, and hundreds more were injured.
SPACE VEGETABLES
Astronauts aboard the International Space Station will eat space-grown vegetables for the first time today. If successful, the experiment could both aid NASA’s exploration of other planets and reduce costs.
